Nathan followed the last student into Greenhouse One, his stack of graded papers depleted. “Overall, I was pleased with the results from your climate exam,” he told the class as he reach the central spot between the two long central work tables where he usually gave his lectures. “Now we’ll move into the pruning unit. Pruning serves several purposes, both aesthetic and functional. When you prune, you cut away dead and overgrown stems or branches, which makes it look nicer, and helps the plant grow better and sometimes increases it’s fruitfulness if it produces flowers or fruit.”

“We’ll be learning a trimming charm today for this, which uses the incantation ‘Redigo’. It is a close cousin of the severing charm, Diffindo, which you may have learned already with Professor Wright, but this helps protect the cut parts of the plant from infection as well as cutting it. It also has the added protection that it works best on plants, so the chances of you accidentally cutting yourself are much lower. A direct hit with the trimming charm will still sting you and give you a little cut, so you should still be careful, but the damage will be much less than if you did the same with the severing charm. Otherwise the two charms work much the same way, allowing you to move your wand to direct where you’re cutting.”

It was a beautiful spring day out, and he was glad the curriculum allowed them a chance to get out and enjoy it. “Today, we’ll be practicing on the hedges outside, so everyone get up and head on out. You can leave your bags here, but please remember your wands. ” He made gestures to indicate that yes, he meant right now, and followed them outside.

Once everyone was congregated on the Labyrinth path right in front of the greenhouse, he continued, “Hedges are very forgiving about how they’re cut, so you don’t need to know the finer details of pruning that we’ll get into over the next few classes. Just practice the spell, and try not to cut any of the hedges back too much, all right? Go on, spread out, and practice the spell by cutting off any dead spots or trimming back any overgrown branches that you see. I’ll be walking around to see how you’re doing, but send up sparks if you run into any trouble or start feeling ill and I’ll come find you as fast as I can.”

OOC: As always, posts will be marked on length, relevance, creativity and realism. If your character is doing anything that would draw Nathan’s attention, just tag me in the subject line. Have fun!

Pruning. It was a strange word. When Dorian had received his syllabus for the term, he had of course looked up all the unfamiliar words, and so he knew that ‘(to) prune (v)’ was a form of cutting... more

After all the drama surrounding the ball run-up, Jehan had resigned himself to going with a group of friends. After being turned down by Luke, his courage had deserted him. He’d asked no-one else,... more

Greenhouse One seemed welcoming again. Now that he was once again talking with Cleo, and understood why she had been so distant, the idea of going to Herbology and seeing Professor X didn't make his... more